Girls' Week

Well friends, you should have known after two straight weeks of blog posts, I would need a little break! I am back at it today talking about a visit from my mom and sisters. I picked them up from the airport on a Monday afternoon. We headed to my house to watch the Olympics. I am an Olympic fanatic!! Matt and I got these super cute hats to wear when we watch the Olympics. ;P We think it brings good luck to the American athletes. I let my sisters take over the duties that afternoon!

We had Mexican for supper and some fro-yo for dessert. My friend told me about this place. Some of the flavors have only eight calories per ounce! I should probably try to eat there more often!

I took most of Tuesday off to hang out with my family. We headed to The Heard Museum for the morning. 

We had a great time learning about Native American culture. 

Jadyn was very zen while checking out the hogan.

Some of the artwork was very beautiful! It started storming while we were there so my mom and sisters got to experience wind and rain in Phoenix for the first time.  

We especially enjoyed our time at the learning center where we made lots of crafts.

Jadyn also practiced swaddling a baby!

I did have to work some while my family was there, and they spent a lot of their time snapping pics in the pool!

Back to the Olympics, I loved getting updates about what is going on from Twitter.

But I also printed out a schedule to follow!

One of my clients had a dream about me. We decided to make a piece of artwork to represent his dream. I thought it was very cute! We were riding on a boat in the ocean together.

Tuesday night, Maks and Val just happened to be in town putting on a show. We got tickets and headed to downtown Phoenix for a great show. Everyone wanted to wear one of my dresses to the show!

When Jadyn was down here last summer, we went to the Dancing With the Stars show. This show was incredible and had such a great story line to follow about their lives.

Lots of screaming ladies the entire entire!

Jadyn headed for Huston the next morning, but my mom and Atlee stayed through the week.

We obviously had to participate in National S'mores Day which happen to fall while they were here!

Thursday night we went on a Flashlight Tour at the Desert Botanical Gardens!

They had lots of additional exhibits displaying animals I never want to see outside of cages as well as crafts and fun learning opportunities.

It's hard to see, but there is a big bull frog hanging out in the water.

We got to see Saturn through a telescope. It also happened to be one of the nights the meteor shower was occurring. The man running the telescope said he saw a few meteors go by, but we had no such luck.

And because a trip to Phoenix is not worth it unless you go to Bahama Buck's, we found one open late and made it 10 minutes before they closed!

We had such a fun time! They got to experience some heat and the rain. My mom will be back in a few weeks so we will have to find more fun things to explore!

Birthday parties and a bed

Here is the next update on our lives! A couple months ago you may remember we went to the showroom for a new Phoenix based mattress company. Well we finally ordered one! It arrived a few days later in its box.

Here it is before we unrolled it!

And we are loving it! I would totally recommend it!

Last weekend we had one of Matt's colleagues and his wife over for dinner. We had such a nice time eating together and enjoying their company! I made breakfast for supper and s'mores fondue for dessert.

We headed out front to play a round of corn hole. Our neighbors came out and joined us. It's kind of fun to live across the street from you friends, it's like college all over again-only maybe better! I guess I forgot to take any pictures but Saturday was filled with birthday parties. In the afternoon we headed over to a friend's for our first birthday party of the day. They recently moved into their new house which they had remodeled. It looked great! That night we headed to our neighbors for a second birthday party, this one was super hero themed. Matt and I bought some super hero t-shirts to wear for the occasion. I tell you what, we should have more parties when it is encouraged to wear t-shirts! Their house was festively decorated which I guess you will just have to take my word for since I took zero pictures! 

We introduced some of our neighbors to Psych, if you haven't play you totally should! You play on your phone so I always thought it would be fun to play from separate locations. We have been playing pretty regularly now, sometimes together, sometimes from our own homes. It's so fun!! It was such a nice carefree weekend!! Angela and Patrick are FINALLY coming to visit this weekend so be on the lookout for more fun adventures to come!

Pool and a Tailgate

So now we are almost all caught up! This weekend (whoops, this is now two weekends ago) [now three weekends ago, but I just wanted to prove I did have this written-just forgot to publish it!] ended up being busier than expected. We woke up Saturday morning with nothing planned. We went out for a walk and Matt saw some guys playing basketball. He went and played for a while, and when he got back he felt he needed a dip in the pool.





 We do not have a pool heater, and it was the middle of November. I will probably not get in until May. I stayed on the side to work on some blogs and shopped for curtains.



Later that morning, his friend, Graham had texted him telling him they were tailgating for the ASU game. We have been trying to go all season, and it has never worked out. They were playing Notre Dame so it was supposed to be a huge game. 

We decided to take the light rail. Apparently so did everyone else...

Turned out it was pretty smart. Once we got there I saw parking for $40! I wouldn't have even paid that much for my ticket into the game!! We met Matt's friends and were able to hangout with them for a little while before they headed into the game.

We parted ways after the tailgate, they went to the game and we left. We saw the blimp on our walk back!

We went and turned in our keys to our apartment. No turning back now! 

By this point, we had walked well over 5 miles and were super tired. We headed back home and our downtown was having a little event of some sort. It had a really catchy name, but I can't tell you what it is anymore. We walked around (AGAIN with the walking!) for a while to check everything out.

 Following the festival we thought we needed a fire. We bought a desk off Craigslist a few months ago. It was HUGE, heavy and obnoxious. It was really a pain to move. We decided we were so done with that desk. Matt thought we should re-sell it. I said I am never moving that thing again so if anyone bought it there was no way I was going to help them haul it out. So we made a new use of it-firewood. Matt chopped it all up and we are now ceremoniously burning it away on the weekends. It was a great way to end our busy day-s'mores and a fire in our backyard.

I will attempt to get you all caught up again so be looking this week for some new posts!

Nearly twice baked potatoes

Matt has discovered his love of crockpots. He can put our food in it before he leaves for work, and I usually get home in time to turn it off. It doesn't get much easier! This recipe involved more work on the back end than the front end, but either way it is still pretty simple! So if you need to get out the door quickly in the morning, this recipe is for you!

Here's what you need:

4 medium russet potatoes

Optional: 10 oz. cremini mushrooms

1 c. broccoli

1/3 c. vegetable or chicken broth

2/3 c. low-fat plain yogurt

Here's what you do:

Wash and clean each potato. Wrap each potato in tin foil and place into crockpot on low setting for 6-8 hours.

Once the potatoes are soft scoop everything out of the skins.

Mix scooped out potatoes with chicken broth and yogurt (and mushrooms if you are adding those). Fill skins with new potato mixture. Cook broccoli how you wish and add to top.

Garnish with your favorite toppings-cheese, bacon bits, etc. And done! You could also very easily add meat to your potato mixture if you choose. Another Tasty Tuesday for you to try.

For your bonus recipe this week I must share these with you. 

S'mores cookies!!!! They are SSSOOOOO good! And super simple! And the best part, you can make as many or as few as you want! They area great afternoon snack! Again these come from my favorite blogger, mix and match mama. You can find the recipe here. I also have it saved under Great Recipes on my Pinterest page. Enjoy!!!

Home Sweet Home

Again it has been too long since I have updated everyone on what has been going on. Summer has been crazy! As you know we just went on the road trip of our lives. I plan to post one day of the trip each day from here on out. The key word in the sentence was PLAN. But before we did that, I took a vacation of my own. 

Since I have finished school forever I thought it was FINALLY time I took a trip home. It was so great to see so many friends and family! The time flew by as it always does every time I am home, but I am very thankful for the time I got to spend there. Here is the synopsis of my trip!

My flight was one interesting experience. They were late boarding our plane. They had us all go stand outside and wait. 

After about 10 minutes they opened the emergency exit in the back and all of us in the back of the plane got to board that way. Everyone else got the normal treatment. We also got to exit the plane in the same manner. It was very interesting but did save us some time.

While at home, I spent a few hours studying but found some time for fun. My parents finished their fire pit so we enjoyed some s'mores on the most beautiful evening ever. 

Summer nights were not like this when I lived in Nebraska. It was absolutely gorgeous!

We spent a few hours taking a girls' day and saw The Fault in Our Stars. I thought it was good, but oh so sad. 

I also was there for the fair but before the festivities could start the work had to be done. Jadyn and Atlee spent many frantic hours slaving away in the kitchen to finish their fair entries. I just helped taste test!

I also got to see some other things that I don't get to experience in Arizona-WEATHER!!! 

We had a nice storm roll in; I thought I better capture it. 

We are entering monsoon season in AZ but I'm not sure if we will see clouds like this.

Saturday we got to go test drive vehicles to raise money for the school. Naturally, I chose the most conservative one there...

We had a good time. Not quite like the Tesla test drive I took earlier this year, but I had much more freedom to drive where I wanted.

Atlee also had her softball tournaments while I was home so I got to sneak in a game!

Then the Sunday activities were underway and we were in full swing fair mode. We did the Fun Run Sunday morning. It was a major family affair!

Sunday night we headed to the park. We watched the band perform. They were missing many members, but they still sounded very good! I am sure this is mostly due to their amazing teacher! ;)



They also did the crowning of Miss Bertrand. Jadyn was one of the contestants, and since I missed her at prom it was so nice to see her in her prom dress.







Isn't she the cutest!?!!! :)

Tuesday was the parade. I had not been to the parade since I graduated from high school. I couldn't even tell you the last time I got to watch the parade and not participate. It was a nice change.



One of the events I was most excited about coming home for was the rodeo. I attended both nights and had lots of fun! A couple of my friends, Angela and Alyssa, joined me on Tuesday night. It was a very exciting rodeo. It was the most entries they had ever had.

I also got to enjoy a couple quick trips to the lake. They were not long enough, but it was nice to get there for a few minutes. 

It was so great seeing so many friends I hadn't seen in such a long time. And enjoying some sweet treats with some of my favorite people!